Tag Archives: digital

The reason we could not find the AI’s was that the AI’s were not somewhere. They were everywhere.

Like River Tethys, the Grand Concourse flowed between military sized farcaster portals two hundred meters high. With wraparound, the effect was of an infinite main street, a hundred-kilometer torus of material delights. One could stand, as I did that morning, under the brilliant sun of Tau Ceti and look down the Concourse to the nighttime midway of Deneb Drei, alive with neon and holos, and catch a glimpse of the hundred-tiered Main Mall of Lusus, while knowing that beyond it lay the shadow-dappled boutiques of God’s Grove with its brick concourse and elevators to Treetops, the most expensive eatery in the Web. (Dan Simmons 1990.)

You are at the very center of the Universe. And you. And you. And you. And…

“Turtles all the way down,” or “The Infinite Turtle Theory,” refers to the infinite regression problem in cosmology. This problem originates with the unmoved mover paradox. The turtle in the anecdote refers to the notion common in primitive cosmological mythology, that is to say, that the flat Earth was supported on the back of a giant World Turtle.

The reality we wake up to is gradually mixed up with chrome-tinted virtual reality, augmented reality, alternative reality, enhanced reality, unreal reality. Worlds of light where light is more real than the real. Life, game, fiction, film all merge together into a texture of purposes and ideas and hopes and wishes. Enmeshed in the net is the Man as the node in a cyberpunk fantasy become reality. The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.

A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body’s surface into space. Many variants have been proposed, all of which involve traveling along a fixed structure instead of using rocket powered space launch. The concept most often refers to a structure that reaches from the surface of the Earth on or near the Equator to geostationary orbit (GSO) and a counter-mass beyond.

‘Work’ is a term that is gradually losing meaning, all the while that we are in an ever growing need of meaningful work.

While it has to be admitted that Freder was born with the silver spoon, he did eventually grow to show character. Perhaps it is only fitting that the liberation of the workman arises from the very nest of the tyrant. Mediation, at best, combines the best of both worlds.

Maybe we could create a massive enough body to curve space-time. Just not in my backyard.

“He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. ‘Good heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!'”

The train goes through the darkness / Towards the sea of light / An endless universe where dreams lie scattered / Let us cross the bridge of stars.

Little Tetsuro travels with mystery woman Maetel all across the Galaxy to get himself a new robotic body. He is welcomed onboard the prestigious Galaxy Express 999, a state-of-the-art spacecraft constructed after the fashion of a 19th century steam train. Next stop, Mars station!